Hi folks. Been a looooong time since I've posted to this list. I have exactly zero experience with wireless -- I've never owned a laptop, and have just never needed it. My gf, as part of her job, needs to bring home a laptop with that other OS on it, and wants wireless access to our broadband. We currently have a DSL connection: phone to DSL modem, ethernet out the back of the DSL modem to our one desktop machine. I'm assuming that what I want is a wireless router with LAN ports: ethernet cable from the DSL modem to the wireless router, and ethernet cable from the wireless router to the desktop machine while her laptop talks to the router by wireless. We have a static IP address; I'm presuming that this wired/wireless router will need to be configured with that address, and then will do NAT with the desktop and the laptop. 1. Does what I just wrote make sense? Am I getting this correctly? 2. If I'm on the right track, what about IP addresses for the desktop and the laptop? Do I have to set them manually to addresses within a non-routeable block? Or do such routers typically do DHCP or something like that? 3. What about configuring the router (with the static IP address, any DHCP operating parameters, etc.)? Since my desktop will be wired, I'd like to be able to configure the router using my desktop -- which means using Linux. If an application on an accompanying DVD is needed to configure the router, I'm guessing that app is only going to work on that other operating system. Or are there routers out there that are configurable from a Linux machine in a straightforward manner? 4. (most important) For someone moderately competent who somehow has made it this far without learning much about wireless, what would you suggest I read? Googling turns up thousands of pages of FAQs and HOWTOs and so on (some of which are ancient -- but that doesn't mean they're not useful, of course). There's lots of stuff out there; but being ignorant, I don't know enough to know what's relevant and what's out of date. What would *you* suggest I read? Thanks much for any info, -c -- Chris Metzler cmetzler@speakeasy.snip-me.net (remove "snip-me." to email) "As a child I understood how to give; I have forgotten this grace since I have become civilized." - Chief Luther Standing Bear
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